In case of an accident, wrong-way drivers, also known as ghost drivers, cause deaths, injuries and considerable material damage. Wrong-way travel in this context is understood as driving against the prescribed driving direction on a directional roadway. A directional roadway is a roadway that is structurally separated from oncoming traffic. Directional roadways are found on freeways or expressways such as enlarged German federal highways. Wrong-way travel may be subdivided into forward travel and reverse travel, the forward travel being initiated by a wrong-way entry or by turning around.
Over half of the instances of wrong-way travel begin at connection points of federal freeways. Especially in wrong-way travel on freeways, accidents frequently result in death due to the high driving speeds and the associated high collision speeds.
Detecting wrong-way travel via navigation devices is not always reliably possible, since the information of the navigation device, such as the class and the direction of the road is provided too late in most cases of wrong-way travel, which is to say that the vehicles are then already located in the travel route envelope counter to the driving direction.
Modern motor vehicles use inertial sensors, such as acceleration sensors and yaw-rate sensors, as well as the steering angle to determine the vehicle state, in order to implement safety and comfort systems. In addition, a multitude of motor vehicles these days have an internal GPS module, for example for a navigation system or a position-finding system of the motor vehicle. Already today and in the future, more and more motor vehicles are equipped with video sensor systems, which likewise process and output different items of information such as for example the detection of a display of traffic signs.